And now for some constructive advice…

Okay, so our last post was a bit harsh. I understand. Feathers were ruffled, egos were bruised, and some agencies were called out. I feel your pain. Really, I do. So as a gesture of good faith (and to balance the cosmic scales a bit), I thought it wouldn’t hurt to pass along this great constructive advice from David Polinchock over at the aptly named Brand Experience Lab (which was named 2006 Agency of the Year by Media Post Publications by the way). These guys obviously get it… and already have a head-start on most of their “contemporaries” (that means you) so pay attention. Some of the insights in this piece are pure gold, so I hope they will inspire you to take your agency/firm/PSF to a whole new level:

What should an agency of the year look like? In my eyes–in this era of the rising “you”–an agency must embody ten critical attributes and capabilities:

1. Foremost, agency staffers must be passionate about acting in the interest of consumers as much as they are in the interest of paying clients. You must do good things in the world and reciprocate with others. Tolerance for anything else is waning.

2. The agency must drop tactical communications from its core positioning and instead embody the value of creating great experiences, with tactics following. (Emphasis mine. This is something that we’ve been saying to agencies since we started the Lab and something I’ve been preaching since the mid-90’s. Maybe now people will start listening! DBP)

3. The agency must embrace a world where paid media placements lose overall traction, and instead master the new currency of word-of-mouth, where reputation and propensity to recommend are earned. These latter factors increasingly determine your ability to communicate and be noticed; they are the new media pipeline.

4. The firm must strive for everlasting client partnerships, not because of insatiable desire for ongoing revenues, but because it understands that programs which achieve deep, ongoing customer experiences and loyalty are incompatible with a start-peak-end model. It’s all about a transition from campaign to platform mentality.

5. An agency of the year should be one that first evaluates the client’s internal processes and culture, to ensure those dimensions optimize opportunities for greatness, not hamper potential.

6. The agency must gain expertise in areas of innovation, product and customer service–versus solely on marketing communications. When the client fails to deliver those fundamentals, the agency must recognize that any advertising or marketing communications will only threaten or erode the client’s brand, or simply waste money. Yes, sometimes the client’s baby is ugly, and it needs help beyond advertising or marketing communications. (Again, something that we’ve been saying since day one. It’s why we created the Experience Audit, so companies can see whether or not they’re actually delivering on their messages. It’s also why we created our university program, to help explore the innovations that will be driving our storytelling in the future. Of course, it goes without saying that we always explore those innovations from the consumer side first! DBP)

7. The firm will value institutional customer-listening as a core competency far more than institutional speaking.

8. Enterprise creativity will stem not from a creative department, but collectively from a group of staffers with diverse disciplines, each with the ability to think creatively, abstractly and from different vantage points. These passionate staffers will often have backgrounds in digital, science and algorithms, multimedia, social sciences, history, arts, culture and more.

9. The agency may get out of the advertising business, for the most part, and perhaps outsource the more tactical aspects.

10. The agency increasingly will recognize and organize around you, the individual.

And that’s how the Brand Experience Lab got to be Agency of the Year in 2006. Welcome to a whole new world of possibilities. Spike, I invite your comments on this one.